


Casting Call

by brotherfuckers



Series: Striderclan [62]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Brothers, Deadbeat Father, Family, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Parents, Sibling Love, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 11:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brotherfuckers/pseuds/brotherfuckers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the first child, D gets to watch his family grow and he gets to meet all of his siblings as the biggest big brother. It's a big role to fill, but he wouldn't give it up for the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Casting Call

He met the first one when his mom’s tummy was big and round. She had gotten dizzy and needed to sit down, so dad was finishing dinner up while she relaxed.  Richie had been afraid of her tummy since the moment it started to round out—dad had told him that if he got too close, it would gobble him up! Mom was mad at him for a while after that, but every time she saw Richie, she would smile at him.

He remembers crawling across the floor so her tummy wouldn’t catch him. She did, though, with her big, long arms and her warm smile. She caught him and lifted him onto the table, where she stood over him, grinned evilly and then leaned down—she blew a raspberry into his tummy until he squealed in delight and _then_ she did it again!

She plays with him, counts his toes and his fingers until he joins in and wow, all of his fingers and toes are still there! All ten of them! He hadn’t lost any! He smiled up at her and she kissed his forehead when he did. She sat down heavily shortly after, wincing a little with her eyes but on her lips a smile grew wide. He asked her if she’s okay. In response, she laughed breathlessly and reached out to take his hand. She led him along until she pressed his hand against her tummy.

He didn’t feel anything for a long time. It was just his mommy’s tummy, grumbling a little bit, but then, just when he least expected it—a little tremor arose from her skin. He jumped. “That’s your little brother,” she explained.

“It feels like your tummy is growling,” he told her. She laughed and kissed his head again.

“Your brother is going to be just like you, ten fingers, ten toes, and a little nose,” she flicked his nose with her finger as she said it. His hands flew up to protect it so that she couldn’t steal his nose. Last time that had happened, he didn’t get it back until _after_ dinner and she had stolen it during snack time! “He’s going to need his big brother to be big and strong, okay, Richard?” He nodded, but he refused to take his hands off of his nose. “He’s going to be crying a lot, okay? So he’s going to wake you up in the middle of the night and he’s going to demand that he has mommy’s and daddy’s attention all the time, okay? So mommy and daddy will be with the baby for a long time and you might feel ignored, but just know that mommy and daddy still love you lots, okay?”

“Why’d you eat the baby, mommy?”

“Because it helps the baby get big and strong. I ate _you_ too,” she added and then reached out to tickle his sides. He released his nose long enough to protect his sides, but she went straight for his nose and flicked it again. Torn, he used one hand to hide his nose and one arm to hide his sides.

“Does the baby have a name yet?”

“We’ve been thinking about a few. There’s Daniel, Darren, Darth and Devon.”

“I like Derrick.”

“Derrick?” He nodded his head hurriedly. “Derrick is a fine name, honey. But we’re still deciding on it for now.”

“Kay!”

* * *

The first one was a week and a half early. Dad was at work when she called Richie out of his room. They’re going on a trip, she said, but it shouldn’t take long. “Bring some paper to draw on and something to play with.” He grabbed some of both and mom handed him a juice box as they go outside. She helped him into his car seat (which, as much as he fought against, he weighed too little and Mom wouldn’t let him get out until he weighed more).

He didn’t realize the meaning of the drive until Mom was on the phone. She hummed Richie’s favorite song until he started to sing along. She smiled at him through the rearview and let out a really hard breath when they stopped at a red light.

“You okay, Mommy?” he asked.

“I’m okay, Richard. I’m just in a little pain, that’s all.”

“Do you want a band-aid for your booboo?”

“That’s okay, Richard. I’m not hurt. Now, if your father would just answer his stupid phone.”

“Mommy! You said a bad word! You have to stick your tongue out for a whole minute! Then, when we get home, you have to wash your tongue with soap.” She made a big deal out of taking a deep breath in and then stuck her tongue out until it touched the bottom of her chin. She put the phone down, hit a button and then hit a few more. The car behind them honked and she jumped, then the car started to move forward again.

“There you are!” She snapped into the phone exactly one minute later, if the clock on the car radio was right. “Look,” she added, “I know you’re at work and I know that this is an important day for you, but try to get off as soon as you can. I have Richard with me; we’re going to be at the hospital. My contractions are about twenty minutes apart right now and I don’t think he’ll wait much longer. Also, I really don’t appreciate being sent to voice-mail after only two rings.” She shut the flip phone with a click. She took a turn onto a road he recognized as the quickest way to the hospital.

“Mom, are we going to go meet with Doctor Hardstuff?”

“No, honey. Doctor Hardy won’t be there. We’re going to go see Doctor Slick and Nurse Paint. Is that okay?”

“Doctor Slick is weird. But I like Miss Paint.”

“ _Nurse_ Paint, Richard.”

“I like Nurse Paint. She’s nice. And pretty.”

“Well, they’re going to be there helping mommy. Okay?” He nodded his head. She turned on the radio and let the music play. By the time they got to their destination, they had listened to the Bohemian Rhapsody and six other, shorter, songs.

Mom held his hand in the elevator. She chose to press the button for the third floor instead of the fifth, like they usually go to when he’s sick. He hummed and sipped on the dregs of his juice box as he held his paper under his other arm.

They go up to the counter and Mom talked to the nurse for a while. After they talked, Mom got a wheelchair and a nurse took him over to one of the chairs they had passed. “Is Mom going to be okay?” He asked the nurse.

“She’s going to be just fine,” he replied.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay.” Richie pulled out the paper he had brought and started using his crayons to color on it. He’s through with five pictures and six hours have passed by the time that his dad finally showed up.

“Where’s your mom, kid?” He asked.

“They gave her a wheely-chair and went down the hall,” he replied. Dad looked at the nurse, who told him a weird number and letter combination. Within half an hour, the two of them went back to a room with Mom, but Mom’s tummy was flatter and there was a fidgety little thing in her arms.

It was really bubbly. That was the first thing he noticed about his little brother; he was made entirely of bubbles under his skin with pudgy cheeks that make his eyes squint. He was sleeping when they met in person. They had to leave him and Mom at the hospital overnight, but not before Mom and Dad argued over the fact that Dad was late “two times in a row” and that if it happened again, he better not be late for the third.

Richie didn’t understand the significance of that argument for another thirteen years.

* * *

Dad didn’t make anything for dinner that night. Instead, he pulled some food out of the fridge, asked Richie what he wanted and then threw it on a plate in the microwave. Dad didn’t eat anything but went into his study. Richie nearly broke the plate when he washed it, but he managed to save it with only a chip off of it.

Mom and the baby come home the next day. The baby was just as pudgy as before, but it wasn’t as wrinkly--though still a little. Richie asked to hold him and mom made him sit on the chair and hold his neck. As soon as they were situated, Mom and Dad started arguing in the other room. Richie can’t understand much of it, but he can hear it.

As he sat on the couch with the smell of pumpkins in the air and the lingering thought that grandma will be at their house tomorrow, Richie saw his brother’s eyes for the first time. They were beautiful and golden and he _swore_ that his brother smiled up at him. Dad said “the kid was just gasy” a few hours later, when he told them about it, but Richie refused to believe him.

The fat little baby liked being held, Richie learned quickly. Mom said his name was “Derrick,” but Derrick was a weird name and calling him “the baby,” like his dad did, was a lot easier. Every time he called “Derrick” that, Mom told him not to. Soon enough, she started threatening to have to punish him for saying a bad word when he called it that. So he stopped.

Grandma pinched the baby’s thighs a lot, but she didn’t _forget_ about him like Mom sometimes did. Mom didn’t really forget him, either. It was more that when the baby cried she went straight for the baby instead of him. He tried crying once, but Dad was the only one home while Mom and Grandma took the baby in to see the pediatrician, so he didn’t care that “the kid was crying”.

Derrick cared, though. Derrick also cried when he cried, though. But Mom went straight for Derrick. She kissed Richie’s head when she saw him crying, but she wouldn’t pick him up when Derrick was in her arms. He didn’t blame her--the baby was so fat that there was no room in her arms for him. But at the very least, when Derrick stopped crying she would put him down and give Richie a big hug until he felt better.

Derrick didn’t care about sleeping, though. He was a stupid little butt head (mom threatened to wash his mouth out when he said that out loud, though she never actually did). Every night at exactly three o’clock in the morning, he would wake up screaming. Eventually Richie started waking up five minutes earlier than Derrick would cry and he waddled his way next door. The crib’s side panel went down to the floor easily and he would crawl in and tuck around Derrick. Once or twice, the baby would wake up, but when he woke with Richie’s arms near him, he didn’t cry.

Mom started noticing after the third morning. She made waffles with thawed berries that grew in the bushes just into the clearing of the forest behind the house that morning. There was homemade syrup, too, but it was still a little too sour, so they decided to grab the store made stuff out of the fridge. She didn’t tell him why she went all-out with the food, but he knew why anyway.

The day after the baby’s first Christmas, Dad left for work in Washington. He didn’t know where that was, but Mom said it was a far way away. He asked when Dad would be home. Mom just stared at him for a long time before she knelt down, kissed his forehead, and asked him if he wanted to have chicken nuggets for dinner. He did.

His “turd birfday” came with his Dad still in that far away place. They received a mailed-in gift from him that morning and at night, just after he helped put Derrick to bed, _Mom_ called _Dad_ and let Richie talk to him. Dad said “happy birthday, kid” like he usually talked to him.

It would take him six years to realize that the kids at school whose dads didn’t only call them kid _weren’t_ the ones with the weird families.

Derrick knew how to crawl and hold his own head up by the time that Dad finally came home again. He was experimenting with sounds and noises and laughed when he burped instead of crying, like he used to. Every now and again he would hiccough or hum and the noise would pull a startled look into his glorious, golden eyes. Mom said they would darken a little when he got older--Richie’s did, after all--and they would probably look like amber. Richie couldn’t wait to see those eyes, too.

When Dad came home, he and mom had a lot to talk about. So Mom put the two of them in front of the TV and pushed a VHS tape into the VHR.

That was when Richie started to fall in love with movies and the wonderful way the actors looked so real and how the cameras knew just exactly where to be.

* * *

Derrick’s first word was “yes”. Richie exploited it as much as he could. He asked him all sorts of questions, even ones that didn’t need that kind of answer, but he asked them anyway and Derrick would happily giggle out the only word he could. When his mom asked why he did that, he told her it was because it was funny to hear Derrick say stupid things. In truth, it was because he liked to listen to Derrick’s baby voice and the adorable way he would talk.

Derrick had a whole slew of ten words under his belt by the time that he tried to say Richie’s name. “Rick,” he tried, then “Rikard” then “RiRi” and “Rawr” but at last he says “Tard!” and he gets the most beautiful smile on his face. Richie couldn’t tell him that, no, his name wasn’t Tard, not to that smile or those eyes.

During dinner, Dad heard Derrick call him Tard and laughed. “You should try Dick,” he told him. “C’mon, with me--Dick. Can you say that?”

“Deek.”

“Dick.”

“Duck.”

“Dick.”

“Dick.”

“Good job, kid.”

“Don’t tell him that!” Mom snapped. “That’s not okay. Derrick, don’t call your brother that.”

“Dick! Dick! Dick!”

It was already too late.

* * *

He met the next one when Mom sat at the table one day, hummed, and announced, “It’s a girl.” Derrick spluttered and coughed around his water then stared at her wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Dad, there for the first time in a year and a half, snorted and raised his brow. “How long?”

“One and a half months.”

“You can’t know that yet.”

“I can and I do. I remember exactly what my boys felt like and this is significantly different. This baby is going to be a girl.” Derrick, doomed to remember exactly how babies are made, turned bright red and covered his ears before he excused himself from the table.

“Are you sure?” Dick asks.

“Positive.”

“How much longer until she joins us?”

“She still has a full gestation period to undergo, Richard. She won’t be due until the end of May. If I’m correct in my assumption, May twentieth will be the day.”

“Just before I finish my first year of high school. All right.”

“As long as you’re done with dinner, you can tell your brother that there will be left overs in the fridge tonight.”

* * *

Dad left two days before Derrick’s thirteenth birthday, but Derrick didn’t notice the absence until Mom pulled out a third box from her closet. Dick wished that Derrick wasn’t so used to his Dad being a no-show, but Dick could hardly remember a time where he stayed for more than two months at a time. Mom still complained about how, before Derrick was born, he hardly kept around. But he was his father and you _have_ to love your family because of blood, and family always loved family. He had no choice.

That didn’t make loving him any easier.

* * *

It was February sixteenth when he finally got the moment to talk to his mom alone. Derrick would usually be here, but on Tuesday someone had been stupid enough to get caught cheating off Derrick’s test and they both had to take Saturday detention or risk losing points. Derrick opted for detention. The other kid took the points, as far as Dick knew.

She was sitting on the armchair of the living room when he found her. She was reading a book by Charles Dickens, _A Tale of Two Cities_ judging by the half of the title that he could see. Her lips moved as she read along and she quietly read to Rosaline.

Dick, being the classy and somewhat shy, new-to-martial-arts-and-acting teenager that he was, he went straight to the kitchen and put the kettle on the burner until it heated through. As he waited for it to whistle, he gathered up the leaves and put them in the tea ball. As soon as it whistled, he dropped the ball in and took the kettle off the heat.

From the living room, he heard the sound of his mother’s voice drift through the words as she recited, “the Gorgon has surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited through about two hundred years.” Dick grabbed from the cupboard two cups and poured the first. He put both of them on a platter, added a small dish of sugar but no milk for either of them. “It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry and petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled....”She paused long enough in her reading to look up and watch as he brought them both tea. He dropped two spoonfuls of sugar into her cup, stirred it, and then handed it to her. She thanked him, then turned to finish the chapter: “drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.”

“Bit morbid for someone not even born yet,” he chuckled.

“She will have to be to keep up with you two boys.”

“Teaching her early on. Good plan.” He turned to pour himself a cup, dropped a spoonful and a half in, stirred and sipped on it.

“What’s wrong, Richard?” She turned to place the book down on the table between the couch and the armchair. She left the page to be marked by a beautifully crafted bookmark that Dick had bought her for Christmas when Derrick was nine.

“What makes you think something’s wrong, mom?”

“You are my first baby,” she retorted, “I will _always_ know when something’s wrong. I had to learn from you to put it to use on the other one. And, soon, on this one.” She laid her freehand over her daughter and smiled serenely at her full stomach. “You have taught me a lot, Richard.”

“Why do you stay with him?”

“With who? Your father?” He nodded. “I love him very much, Richard. I always have and I doubt I will ever fall out of love with him.”

“But he’s _never_ here.”

“No, I don’t suppose he is. This is something I don’t quite enjoy, either, but everyone has their own nuances and quirks that aren’t to be meddled with.”

“Mom, he doesn’t even use our _names_ to address us. We’re just ‘the kids’ to him. He doesn’t call, doesn’t text, wouldn’t even send gifts for the holidays and our birthdays if you didn’t harp on him--he doesn’t _care_ about us!”

“Your father never wanted children.”

“I can _tell_.”

“I agree with you, Richard.” She paused to drink from her cup. “There is no reason that a man of his caliber cannot, for lack of a better term, step-up and act like an actual father _should_. However, a family was never his dream. It was mine. He only agreed to have one because I asked him. I was naive when I had you, Richard. I had thought that I would be able to have someone only half-dedicated to a family and still believed that I could raise my children without fault.”

“You have! It’s not you at fault--it’s him!”

“Richard, don’t interrupt me.”

“R-right... sorry.”

“It wasn’t until you were starting school that I truly started to notice the effects of having him leave so often. At the time, I asked him to spend more time with you. Perhaps make up for lost time and to encourage you to remember those memories versus the ones where he wasn’t here, however that proved to be for none. Instead, he took the invitation to create a stable relationship with his first born as an insult and chose instead to spend more time working. He is, as you are well-aware, anything _but_ a family man.”

“That makes me feel _so_ great mom.”

“Oh, honey, no, no,” she reached out and, despite pressing her stomach against the arm of the chair in the meanwhile, put her hand to his cheek. “That is not at all your fault. That is entirely his own fault and for no reason under the sun should you _ever_ feel as though you caused that.”

“That doesn’t make it better, Mom,” he sighed.

“I know, darling, but it isn’t your fault, nor was it ever. Please remember that.”

“I _know_ , Mom. I _know_. But that doesn’t change the fact that Derrick forgot that he even _had_ a dad repeatedly until he was _eight_. I thought it was _weird_ when dads called their kids by their name at school--when their dads even decided to _pick them up_ from school. Do you _really_ want Rose to be the same way?”

“Her name is Rosaline, Richard.”

Dick looks her straight in the eye.“You and I both know that there is nothing in this world that would force Derrick _or_ myself to call her by her full name.”

“Speaking of full names, remind me that I need to speak with Derrick when he gets back from detention.”

“Sure. But let’s not forget the point of this conversation, mom. Would you rather Rose grow up feeling completely forgotten by her father or without a father at all.”

“My boys turned out just fine.”

“You didn’t know what you were getting us into when you had us. You’re coming into this _knowing_ Rose will have to face an absentee father and that’s _hardly_ fair.”

“Richard, I know this is hard on you. I know how hard this has been for you, but your sister will be far stronger than you were as a child because I do know what I’m bringing her into. My baby will be the strongest woman you _ever_ knew because of both that and because _you_ are there for her.”

“But Mom--”

“No buts! I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth pertaining to your father unless it has nothing to do with his absence.”

“That sentence was grammatically incorrect.”

“Prove it.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. She gave him a loving, self-pitying smile and tried to put on a brave face, but he could see her fear over Rose churning in her mind. He sighed, picked up the book from beside her and opened it to the bookmark.

He was halfway through the chapter when she stopped him at a paragraph break. “You know,” she told him, “you were on this seat the first time that you ever touched your brother. You held him here. Back then you two were so close in size that you could almost think you were twins, if Derrick weren’t still bundled up. He was such a big baby--and you were always such a skinny child.” She reached out as she spoke and took his hand. She laid his hand on her stomach and the sensation of small feet against her skin made him jump. The kicks were strong or, at least, they were stronger than Derrick’s had been.

Dick puts his finger in the book to mark his spot and shut it around his hand. “Keep talking about twins and you’ll have a pair yourself.”

She laughed at him and smiled.

* * *

Derrick returned home from school via the public bus system and a half-mile walk to the house. Mom had offered to pick him up, but he had refused it out right until he made her _promise_ not to go. After all, he was a Lalonde and Lalondes could take care of themselves. They always could. Ever since the beginning of time, Lalondes were capable of fending for themselves.

She made them root beer floats to celebrate his return. Dick chewed on the foam while Derrick stared ominously at the small drink in front of him. “Eat up, Derrick. Are you not hungry?”

“What’s the news?” He asked.

“Now that we have another life coming into the family, I believe it is inappropriate for you to keep calling your brother ‘Dick’.”

“Aww, c’mon Mom! I’ve called him that since before I can remember!”

“I would prefer it if Rosaline’s first word _isn’t_ the aforementioned body part. I would much prefer it if you called him Richard, or Richie, or any combination thereof. However, I refuse to allow you to call him ‘Dick’ any longer.”

“Rose’s first word won’t be ‘dick’, Ma. You know that. She’s coming from your genes; she’s too smart for that.”

“Babies are highly impressionable, Derrick. You may not realize this, however, since the last baby you saw was yourself.”

“And if I don’t stop calling him ‘Dick’?”

“Either I can take away your allowance and pull you out of your martial art courses or you can spend every date for the rest of your life as a double date with myself--still with no allowance. Pick your punishment.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Her eyes flickered and steeled over, but Dick had no doubt in his mind that she was serious from the beginning. He took another spoonful of foam, scraped a bit of the floating ice cream and shoved it into his mouth.

“Fine! Fine! I’ll figure it out.”

“You have until your sister is born to decide on a nickname.”

* * *

On April thirteenth, Derrick found his way into Dick’s room at three the in the morning. Dick sighed and rubbed his eyes, not at all surprised by the time but no idea why he wasn’t. Derrick swayed as he stood in the doorway, watched him through foggy golden eyes, and then grinned as he said, “Sleepin’ well, D?”

“I was _before_ you woke me up.” He grabbed one of his pillows off of his bed and threw it at Derrick’s head as hard as he could. “Go to sleep.”

* * *

D spoke with a monotone, nearly uncaring voice into the speaker of the house phone while his mother prattled away in her work suite. He could hear the sound of dropped items and the distinct sound as she noticed them minutes after they fell. The wall was hard against his shoulders as he leaned against it, but even that couldn’t distract him from the depressing attitude the man on the other side of the phone caused. “They want to induce her.”

His father didn’t even try to pretend like he cared. “Then let it happen.”

“Mom told you to be here at the beginning of May.”

“I’m busy.”

“You’re _always_ busy.”

“Listen here, kid, I keep food on your plates with this job.”

“You missed the first two births,” he pointed out. “Do you really want to strike out a third time?”

“How’d you know that?”

“What? Did you think I was deaf or something? I can remember that argument just fine.”

“You were fucking four!”

“Two,” he corrected. “But you’ve had it since then as well, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you wouldn’t remember that.”

“You sure are getting snippy with me, kid.”

Glass broke inside the work suite. His mother cursed but her voice wavered as she said it. It took all of D’s willpower not to help her out. “I just think that if you want to be a worthwhile parent, you have to, y’know, be there for the big _stuff_.”

“I _am_ there for that stuff!”

“Uhhuh. How old is Derrick?”

“Thirteen.”

“Lucky fuckin’ guess.”

“Watch your mouth, boy.”

“Hard to watch something that your eyes can’t even see.”

“You want me to wash your damn mouth out with soap?”

“Dad, how old am I?”

The response was absolute silence.

“They’re starting her on the first, if she hasn’t given birth yet. In the evening. Just be here.”

* * *

He wasn’t there. D drove her to the hospital--so he could get practice on his permit before the baby came--that night. He didn’t go into the room that they took his mother into, but she came back out and said that they’ll know by morning.

There was no sign in the morning. The procedure had happened at nine o’clock the night before, so his mother kept telling him not to worry, not to worry, they’ll know soon, but he couldn’t help but worry. She used to say it was “in his nature” and now that this has happened, he truly began to believe that was true.

At eleven after eleven, as she was walking into the living room, she fell to her knees and cried out. Both Derrick and D jumped to their feet and flew straight to her, but her smile was wide and her eyes sparkled with joy. “She’s coming!” She announced.

Derrick was up the stairs in a heart beat. Two doors opened and shut hurriedly followed by a third one not long after the second. D had gotten his mom into the passenger’s seat of the car by the time Derrick got around. He tossed D his wallet with his permit inside and he caught it easily before Derrick slid into his seat in the back.

His mom breathed through the contractions and kept her eye trained on the radio’s clock as he drove them. Halfway there, she broke into quiet laughter and said, “I think we’re going to need a bigger car soon.”

Derrick laughed along with her, but D was too worried to do anything but grin at the joke.

According to the doctor once they get there, she wasn’t dilated enough to give birth just yet. She was given an IV and a temporary room to wait it out in, which both Derrick and himself kept to.

“You two don’t have to stay,” she told them.

“We will,” D guaranteed.

“Someone has to,” Derrick muttered. Mom glared at D, but he shook his head back. No, the shake said, I didn’t tell him to say that.

She’s finally dilated enough to give birth at midnight. It took three hours to push Rose out, but after a long day of sitting with their mother and a night of sleeping against each other in the uncomfortable seats the hall provided, D and Derrick woke up to see their baby sister.

After the preliminary examination, Rose (not Rosaline, according to the birth certificate) was declared as a healthy, beautiful, seven pound thirteen ounce blonde-peach fuzzed little girl with almost see-through albino blue eyes. They’ll darken, Mom said, her eyes will be purple.

D got to hold her first. She was nothing like pudgy little Derrick had been. She didn’t squirm or cry when he held her too tight and her head fit right in the crook of his elbow. Her eyes were only half-lidded while they watched him, but there was a flicker of familiarity in them when he spoke to her. She reached for him and he gave her his finger.

She stole his heart through that finger.

When asked about why the birthing took so long, Mom looked Derrick in the eye, smiled serenely (even through her half-dried sweaty fringe of hair) and said, “Rose just didn’t want to leave me yet.”

There was never any doubt to the contrary after that.

* * *

Rose, much to D’s surprise, truly was _nothing_ like Derrick had been as a baby--as far as he could remember. She slept through the night first day at home (after a week of hospitalization for monitoring) and she hardly ever cried. He often found himself searching her out to make sure that she wasn’t too quiet for them.

Two months after her birth, his father finally showed up. He took one look at her, nodded his head and kissed Mom’s cheek. “How’re you?” He asked. He didn’t ask after any of the kids or ask what he missed or any of the sort.

Derrick stopped D from making the worst decision of his life that night. He stopped him from beating the shit out of his father before either of their parents even knew his plan. Derrick stopped him easily and with his head, rather than the strife they usually would have taken to.

He dropped Rose into D’s arms and forced him to take care of her until he calmed down. She was unusually fussy from the colic the early weaning caused. Mom had wanted to keep her on breast milk longer, but the doctors said Mom _had_ to go in for the surgery to fix the bones in her back and that the pain meds could affect Rose. After only two months of it, however, Rose wasn’t used to anything else and still needed it.

He rubbed her belly and sang her lullabies until she quieted down. Then, when she was calm, he put on a movie and watched it with her. The cartoon made her fidget from the beginning to end, but the moment it finished the VHR automatically switched the TV onto the live shows. The first shot was of a bloody crime scene and he instinctively covered Rose’s eyes.

She grabbed his hand, brought it down, and bit on it with her unusually strong, gum-filled mouth. He stole his hand back, shook it off and Rose nearly front-flipped out of his lap until he caught her and placed her on the floor. Using her arms, she lifted herself up slightly and tilted her head back, eyes trained on the TV.

She cried when he changed the channel, despite her constantly falling back onto his chest in her attempt to keep watching. He couldn’t do _anything_ to get her to stop until he, against his better judgement, turned the station back to the bloody murder documentary. She quieted down instantly and set to watch it. He pulled Derrick out of the kitchen, away from the dishes, and made him watch her while he got Mom.

She was astounded by the news of her baby’s reaction to the TV. She tried changing the channel a few times but the same results occurred until she finally left the channel on the documentary.

“You don’t think it’ll cause her nightmares, do you?” She asked him.

“You read _A Tale of Two Cities_ to her nearly every week of your pregnancy. I’m _sure_ she’ll survive _this_.”

Mom bit her lips together despite his best attempts to console her.

That night, D slept in the same room as Rose--as he promised--and she slept the entire night through undisturbed by night terrors.

* * *

Her first word was “cat”. D’s reaction to her voice was exactly the same as his reaction to Derrick’s was.

Her second word was “bo”. It took them several tries to figure out what the word _meant_ to her before she lifted her arms to Derrick and whined out one long, infantile screech of “bo!” D chuckled as Derrick picks her up and he nudges the fourteen year old with his elbow. “How does it feel to be a big brother, _Bro_?”

Red in the face, Derrick pointedly looked away from him. “Shuddup.”

* * *

After Rose learned to call out for Bro, the two of them were practically inseparable. When their father left, neither of them noticed, but D was fine with that. The two of them had each other and Bro would help Rose through any and all hardships that he caused. Bro could hold Rose for hours, could sing and play peekaboo and _entertain_ her for _days_ on end but her father hadn’t ever tried that, not once.

Secretly, D wished that Rose would know her father figure as a valiant man nicknamed “Bro” rather than the sperm donor that created her.

He never told anyone this.

He vowed never to tell anyone of this fact.

It didn’t make the fact that he willed it into being any different.

* * *

Mom announced the fourth one about four months after he was attacked in the school locker room, right as he was getting ready to watch his friends cross the stage and as he prepared for one more year of public school and then, finally _finally_ he could get his own diploma.

She announced a boy.

Father, strangely present although unknowing about what happened those months ago, said it would be a girl.

* * *

Mom collapsed about three months into the pregnancy. The doctor told her to stay on bed-rest for a week. It got to the point where Bro would balance Rose on his hip while D glared at her to make sure she stayed in bed because she refused to stay down.

The cause of the collapse was identified at the end of the week, during her ultrasound. Two tiny heartbeats bled out through the speakers. She told them no sex--she didn’t want to know what sex they were.

“Naming them will be hard,” she told D on their way home. “Any ideas?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Well, you named Derrick and you influenced Rose’s name. So your opinion about their names is valued highly.”

“I named Derrick?”

“We were considering Daniel beforehand.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

“Keep the names short?” He offered.

* * *

Father didn’t show face at all during the pregnancy, didn’t show up for the birth in early December and damn well didn’t get to see Rose’s beautiful face scrunch up as she laughed at her newest brothers. Dirk, the one with the eyes like Bro’s, took to D almost immediately. Dave kept a strict hand in Bro’s shirt almost constantly.

Mom had to be kept on bed rest and in the hospital after she hemorrhaged during the birthing process. The babies were cleared and she convinced the workers through the magical power of her illustrious mind to let the twins go home with the rest of her kids--D _was_ legal, after all.

The first night was not unlike the first six months of Bro’s life. The twins cried at the same exact time and woke all three of them up simultaneously. Rose, still holding onto her blankee, walked into the room rubbing at her eye and looked up at D trying to comfort the twins simultaneously. She sniffled and tilted her head as she asked, “Can I help?”

“Sit down in the rocking chair,” he all but ordered. She did and he struggled to lay both of the babies down in the bed carefully. At last, he grabbed Dave and turned to give him to her, instructing her exactly as his mom had instructed him when he was a little younger than her. She holds onto him nearly for dear life, refusing to let Dave come within harm’s way so long as she kept him in her arms. D turned to Dirk and held him as he kept a close eye on Dave.

Bro swept in for the victory ten minutes later and grabbed up Dave out of Rose’s arms, sticking a bottle in his mouth. He stuck another in Dirk’s mouth and both of them suckled hurriedly. Rose giggled breathlessly from her chair as she slipped back asleep.

“Where’d you get the formula?” D whispered to him.

“Mom’s emergency rations,” he replied, just as quietly. “It’s from the only can that hasn’t expired yet, but it’s large enough to last the week--well, for a single baby.”

“We should go to the store.”

“With what money?”

D bit his lips together and looked away. “Remember when father thought he left his card back in Seattle?”

“Yeah...?”

“I took it.”

“ _Why_?”

“I, I don’t know. We just... I just knew it would be important later on and I grabbed it. I withdrew about two hundred dollars before he shut the card out.”

“Two _hundred_?”

“For emergencies!”

“You could have made him broke!”

“I watched his bank account. It’s so big that he wouldn’t even know it was taken out until someone told him, anyway. That thing is massive. He could afford to buy mom three houses full out and rent a beach home and he would still have the other half ready. He should pay child support.”

“D, he’s still our dad.”

“But can you tell me I was wrong?”

Bro ignored the question. “How much is left?”

“Almost all of it. I had to use a little here and there, mixed in with my allowance, to get some things for Rose, but that’s it, I swear.”

“Mom would _kill you_ if she found out.”

“ _Please_ don’t tell her.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because this is for our _brothers_ , Bro. Would you really want to jeopardize them over something this stupid? Just, keep it a secret. _Please_.”

“Okay, fine. Only this once.”

* * *

He found out six months later that she knew from the beginning. She didn’t reprimand him outright, but she slowly stopped with the allowance until he asked her what was up. The apology had lasted almost four hours before she finally let up.

* * *

Their father came home one day, looked around to see the five squirts running about, shook his head and said, “fuck it” before he left. He didn’t even stay for five minutes.

* * *

Dirk and Dave mirrored each other in every way for the first year. From the way they smiled to the way they slept and the way they laughed to the way they used their cryptophasia for mischievous nonsense and the planning thereof. When Dirk raised his left hand, Dave raised his right. When Dirk skinned his right knee, Dave skinned his left. The injuries were never purposeful in any sense of the word, but the sheer coincidence had all of them giggling every time.

They were both super excited when Mom told them that they were going to have a baby sister. They ran around the house like mad at the announcement and told everyone they ran into for the next week that they were going to have a little sister.

D looked at his mother with a question in his eye but she just shook her head. He knew there was no way that his father would have supported the possibility of another child--in fact, D was surprised that his father hadn’t already gotten a vasectomy. But he was also pretty sure that Mom wasn’t planning for another child. Not after the twins.

Whatever the reason and however the method, D would never ever call his little sister an accident.

* * *

D got the invitation to Texas when the babes were eight months old, but he put it off for four and a half months before he told Bro about it. They started plotting, planning, and pulled resources together.

They told Mom that they were leaving and told her the plan. She hated to see them go and watch her babies leave the nest, but she helped them as much as she could. Leaving Rose was hard on D. The twins didn’t understand entirely what leaving meant until it was too late. And leaving before the next baby was born was terrible, but he promised himself that he would come back for her.

They both had heart attacks when Mom called to tell them the twins were missing.

* * *

They take legal custody of the brats with permission of their mom. At first none of them want to do it, but they have to admit that it would make life easier on the twins and that’s what matters the most.

To this day, D still wonders if his father even knew about that or if Mom pulled some legal trickery.

The kids were little shits that get into more chaos than they do anything else, but chasing them around the apartment only to catch them and hear their laughter was more than worth it, D reasoned.

* * *

Mom called him on the phone just after he secured his first official gig with an official name and official _everything_ all by his lonesome. “It’s officially a girl,” she greeted. “And the doctors have told me everything will be fine.”

“I hope you’re not still with that asshole.”

His phone died at that very moment. He scrambled to find the cable and plug it into his laptop. The reboot time took too long and when he finally hit redial, he could hear his mother tapping her foot as she waited.

“Sorry!” He almost yelled the moment he heard the tone stop. “Phone died.”

“It better have.”

“I wouldn’t hang up on you, Mom.”

“Well, anyway, are you still using your e-mail from when you were in school?”

“I have the password, yeah. Why?”

He met her through an ultrasound video e-mailed to him on his laptop. He felt her kick when they go up north to visit for Christmas. Her kicks were strong, but the doctors worried over the fact that she inverted several months in advance. Mom was thrown on bed rest that lasted months. Rose had to threaten to sit on her legs halfway through, but she stayed bed-rested.

They were in town for the birth not because it was a holiday or because school had conveniently given them the opening in their schedules but because Mom asked them to be there. She asked their father to be there, too, but he wasn’t.

D was the only one not in the least bit disappointed. He was the only one that expected him not to show up from the beginning. However, he wasn’t the only one who failed to be surprised.

* * *

Both of the twins got dangerously sick shortly before flu season started that year. Mom told them not to worry and that there’s nothing to worry about, but D worried. He worried until he couldn’t sleep and he worried until he became paranoid about invisible spiders on the walls, threatening to lunge at his brothers and devour them whole. Bro only knocks him out by giving him a glass of water he had dissolved some sleeping pills into.

D didn’t notice he was asleep until he woke the next morning to broken fevers and giggly kids. He could have cried if he weren’t so relieved.

* * *

Mom told him one day that his father spends more time at home. He told her to tell him to fuck off and purposefully hung up on her for the first time in his life.

He never did it again.

His father made a very public announcement about not wanting to come back to some idiot with six kids running around and four of them missing half of the time. Mom let him go and in that moment, D abandoned his belief that he _had_ to love his father because he helped give life to him.

He wasn’t a father. He didn’t _deserve_ love for donating sperm.

The next time an interviewer asked him about his family, he mentioned his mom and his siblings, no name for any of them to keep them safe, but he didn’t mention his father. They picked up on the lack of a father figure and they hammer him on the subject until he finally states in a plain, monotonous voice, “One hardly needs two parents to grow up well. You hardly need parents, really. Just someone who cares.”

“Why do you say that?”

“As the oldest, I’ve gotten the chance to watch each of my siblings grow up and _let me tell you_ all they needed was their mother and a friendly hand from someone who knew the ropes.”

“Do you and your siblings get along?”

“It’s hard not to get along with so many people that have stolen your heart.”

“You guys don’t fight?”

“Of _course_ we fight. But fighting doesn’t mean that we don’t get along. Everyone fights and has disagreements--it’s how humans managed to get so far in our technology. My mother taught me that just because we fight doesn’t mean we don’t love each other.”

“Your mother seems to be quite the strong woman.”

He smirked back and nodded his head. “Let’s just say that you don’t cross her. Ever. You could be cross-country or in the same room as her and the result will not change.”

“Would you say your mother is abusive for keeping you away from your father?”

“My father kept himself away. And if you dare say my mother is abusive again, you’ll have six _very_ offended siblings to contend with.”

 

His mom found the interview and texted him the day after it aired. She offered to send a cake. He told her that the cake was unnecessary but everyone sent their love. She sent it right back. The hugs he gave the twins are so tight they make them giggle and screech with laughter before they slip out of the room to run down the hall.

Out of all of the kids in his family, D supposed he was the luckiest of them all. After all, he got to watch _all_ of them grow up.

And he wouldn’t miss that for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> For more information please check out our work at striderclan.tumblr.com; we have more stories, head canons, art/pictures.


End file.
